Chasing Normal
by Constance Eilonwy
Summary: There was one time he saved the world. Part of the I, Janitor series.
1. Chapter 1

_**Chasing Normal **_  
by dotfic  
Gen, PG

Disclaimer: all characters are the property of DC Comics and Warner Brothers, except for the janitor, who is my fault. Thanks to everyone who asked for another janitor story, especially Missy who kept telling me this needed to get finished, and Mer, who made suggestions and listened to me babble even though this is just so not her fandom (yet).

Continuity/Spoilers: Post-"To Another Shore." Also, Teen Titans have cameos. Continuity? _What_ continuity.

No superheroes or janitors were harmed (much) during the writing of this fanfic.

* * *

There was this one time I saved the world. 

It's important to understand that when I took a job as a janitor for superheroes, it was an honest attempt to take a step towards normal. I thought even though it would never actually be normal, it would at least have a lovely view of normal.

Because I've tried so-called "normal" jobs: I've mopped floors at a high school in Southern California, at an Air Force complex just outside Colorado Springs, and at the CIA.

The CIA was dull and nothing ever happened. The other two...normal?

Excuse me while I laugh hysterically.

I'm not going to quit this job.

When I applied to become part of the maintenance crew for the Justice League, my wife and I reasoned that since my last "normal" job turned out to be full of weird, then if I deliberately sought out a weird job, it should be full of normal.

So I got a job as a janitor on the Justice League's second Watchtower. After the tower got decommissioned, they offered me a promotion to Head of Maintenance at their new headquarters. I accepted. My wife was relieved, and said at least I would be going to work on the Earth instead of in a tin can above it. I said just because the new headquarters was earth-based didn't mean super villains wouldn't try to attack it. She gave me one of her looks, so I changed the subject.

I'm not going to quit this job, even though it just bounced itself into another galaxy far, far away from normal.

There'd been a mission to planet XP3414 (the name gave me a nasty flashback to memories of Cheyenne Mountain). Apparently the team had some trouble and alien goo had gotten all over the Javelin.

Before I started as Head of Maintenance, the League sent me for additional training: handling and cleanup of toxic substances, specialized stuff like that, all fully funded. It was good of them to do that—they could have hired someone for the post who already had the training. I wondered if it was a trust issue, that they chose me because they already knew me.

So the Javelin came back from XP3414 with alien goo all over it. My crew went to work, along with two chemists. There was a lot of goo, and I always felt dumb standing around when my staff was cleaning, so I grabbed up one of the special vacuum devices we use, and started work on the underside of the left wing.

Something dropped onto my shoulder.

We were all in hazmat gear as a standard precaution, even though initial readings showed nothing radioactive or dangerous, but the stuff was mysterious enough. The hazmat suit should have protected me, but as I turned my head to look at the green stuff on my white-covered shoulder, it soaked into the material, spreading like a greasy green stain.

I shouted that I'd gotten some of the glop on me. The chemists came running over. So did Green Lantern, who'd led the mission and was watching the cleanup, alien goo being something he'd probably dealt with a lot.

"All right everybody! Clear the area! We aren't sure what we're dealing with," Green Lantern shouted. My crew put down their gear and left the hangar, a few of them hanging back and trying to get a look at me.

"You okay, boss?" Hitchens asked.

I nodded. "Go on. We'll finish cleanup later. They just need to check this out first."

Hitchens didn't look convinced. In fact he looked downright worried, and for such a young guy, his forehead could hold an awfully deep crease. But he went.

"We have to get you into the lab and out of the suit ASAP," Dr. Sacks said as they hustled me across the hangar. "Then we have to run a full diagnostic and check for..."

"Uh...Doc..." I interrupted her. I began to feel nauseous and pulled off my head covering, although I probably wasn't supposed to do that.

The room spun.

"I think he's..." Dr. Fisch was cut off as Green Lantern shoved him aside, probably because he saw that I was swaying on my feet and about to fall over and he thought he maybe should try to keep me from falling down.

His mistake. I tossed my cookies onto his boots.

"Sorry," I mumbled, right before the room spun around again like a merry-go-round and I passed out.

* * *

I woke up in the infirmary, not the regular infirmary on level twelve, the other one on level twenty-one. It was the one with the equipment that makes the Air Force's medical toys look like Legos, the one where they take the metas and the aliens—and apparently, janitors who have been splashed with alien goo. 

People in white lab coats ran an alphabet soup of tests. I wasn't allowed to call home to tell them I'd had an accident. They said the alien goo was classified. Only they didn't call it alien goo, they referred to it as something long and technical.

The white lab coats started prepping me to go into a machine that looked like it could do your taxes, launch a nuclear attack, cure cancer, and perform an MRI all at once.

"My health insurance covers this, right?"

The lab coats chuckled and one of them smiled faintly. "Don't worry, you're covered." He stuck an electrode on my chest.

"So that's why I work here," I said. "It's the awesome benefits."

"That and the cafeteria food." Another one poked a thermometer in my ear.

Another lab coat approached me, holding an instrument in his hand. A long cord ran from the back of it into a machine with a computer screen with a lot of lines and numbers on it. "Okay," I said, backing up, "what is that, and where are you going to insert it?"

* * *

They kept me in there for fourteen endless days. 

It was uncomfortable and boring and left me entirely too much time to think. The lab coats murmured to each other out of my earshot and compared notes scribbled on clip boards. They wouldn't tell me anything, which convinced me I was dying.

It was probably cancer. I mean, the stuff had to be radioactive, right?

They finally let me call home but I still wasn't allowed to tell them anything.

"What do you mean, 'same old, same old'?" My wife said, her voice rising. I held the phone an inch away from my ear. "You go on a trip and don't check in with us for _two weeks_? I would have called the police, except the Tower switchboard operator said you'd checked in with _them_."

"I'm really, really sorry. It...uh...things got complicated. We...uh...met with some government guys. NASA has something the Justice League wants for the tower." I could just hear the crunch of a shovel going into the ground as I dug my own grave. "I can't tell you more than that. It's top secret. I love you, I'll call again soon. Let me talk to the girls." I winced as she put the phone down with a _clunk_.

"Wow, Mom's really PO'd." My oldest picked up the phone next. "Dad, is it okay if I go to the movies with a boy?"

"Ask your mother," I said, ducking the question and trying not to cry. If I was dying of radioactive alien cancer, I'd never get to see her go out on her first date, let alone grow up.

My crew visited a lot. But no one but the lab coats were allowed in the same room with me, so I had to talk to them through a glass window and using speakers. That must be what prison is like.

Green Lantern checked on me twice. The Flash stopped by almost every day, which I'm certain he was too busy to do. He brought me cheeseburgers and fries. I wasn't supposed to eat them, it would mess with the test results, but sometimes I did anyway.

Somewhere under all those masks and capes and brightly-colored outfits, I knew that all of them were probably regular people, to some degree. Even the aliens. Maybe even the batman. It's just that the Flash's regular seemed closer to the surface than with most of them.

I'm pretty sure that superheroes don't bring people cheeseburgers in prison, but it still drove me crazy being trapped in there like a bug under a magnifying glass.

I actually felt fine, which eased some of my panic about cancer. They kept running tests anyway.

At last they said I could go home. They'd found no sign of illness, nothing abnormal, only they said I should eat more vegetables.

* * *

I got an additional week of paid medical leave, to recover. I told the family it was vacation and for the past two weeks I'd been on a business trip, meeting with sales reps who dealt with high-tech cleaning equipment. 

It was awful lying to them. Our families are allowed to know what the nature of our jobs are, and the hazards. This was the first time I'd had to hide something from them.

We took the girls to the lake for the week. This had the additional benefit of postponing my oldest girl's first date.

She informed me she was onto my clever plan, but would let it slide for the week since I'd been away for so long and she missed her Daddy. Since she hasn't called me "Daddy" for two years, I told her I was onto her clever plan and she wasn't fooling anyone in trying to butter me up.

We had fun. Normal suddenly seemed within reach again—maybe just over the hill or around the corner.

* * *

We got back a day before I had to go back to work. There wasn't any food in the house, so I offered to go out to pick up some Chinese food and a DVD rental. 

After parking the car downtown, I walked towards the rental place. It was a good night, the stars were clear, the air was cool, and no one was sticking a needle into me anywhere.

In the alley between the wine shop and the rent place, I heard voices and saw several shadowed figures. Something about it made the hair on the back of my arms creep, so I stopped under a tree, just to reassure myself it wasn't anything bad. Our town is pretty quiet with a low crime rate, but every so often something happens, as it does everywhere.

There were some broken bricks lying strewn near the mouth of the alley, the remains of a construction project. The streetlight didn't reach into the alley, leaving it in semi-darkness.

I heard one of the shadowy figures speak: "Your purse, lady. Now."

"No."

There were three of them, and one of her. I could just make her out, backed up against the brick side wall of the rental store, clutching her purse tightly to her chest almost like a shield.

I pulled out my cell phone, dialed 911, gave them the address and said a lady was being mugged. Then I did what you weren't supposed to do, and hung up, because I figured by the time the police got there, it might be too late for her.

"Hey! Leave her alone!" I shouted, moving into the mouth of the alley.

_Oh yeah. Real intimidating._

One of them laughed as they turned away from the woman to me.

"Look, it's a hero. I'm scared now. Why don't you give me your wallet, hero?" Something sharp glinted in his hand.

The woman swung her purse, hitting him from behind. He turned towards her with a curse. She ran towards me, but the mugger grabbed her while the two others ran at me.

I don't remember thinking about it. I just reacted. I bent and scooped up a few bits of brick and threw it at them.

Then the weirdest thing happened.

All the broken pieces of brick rose off the ground and streaked towards the muggers. It was as if a very strong wind had gusted into the alley. Only there was no wind that night, just a gentle breeze. The brick pieces pelted the two about to attack me, and the one who was holding the woman. He yelped in pain and released her.

Under the hail of bricks, all three muggers staggered back. Blood trickled down the left side of the face of the guy who had grabbed me. Another one clutched his side, doubled over, and the third had a bloody nose.

They stared at me, speechless, then scrambled over each other to get out of the alley fast.

"What..." the woman, a brunette in her early 40's, stared after them, then looked at me. "What did you do?"

"Do?" I said stupidly.

Then I noticed that the brick pieces were in a small, neat pile a few feet away.

"You just...the bricks flew at them. You did it without touching them. I saw you. You only picked up a small handful but then...all of them. Whoosh!" She gestured.

I coughed, trying to regain my voice.

"Are you one of them? You know, a metahuman? Part of the Justice League?"

"No...I...not exactly."

"But you are a metahuman?"

"I'm..."

"Thank you," she said, heartfelt.

"You're welcome."

A siren whooped, and red light appeared down the street. I felt a headache coming on.

"What do they call you? If you are one of them. Don't you all have a funny name?"

I was about to tell her I wasn't one of _them_ and my name was ordinary. But the cops were getting closer and soon she'd be telling them how I magically pelted the muggers with bricks. My eyes found a broken old broom, leaning against the wall next to the dumpster.

I stood up tall and bent my arms, fists on my hips.

Deepening my voice, I said, "They call me...The Janitor."

Then I ran.

And then I made a phone call.

* * *

There were more tests. Except this time in addition to poking needles in me and hooking me up to electrodes, they had me do things like move sand. I had to shift the sand from one side of the red tape in the middle of the table to the other. 

After sand, we tried water and that worked too. Mud. Rubble crushed into small pieces, like the bricks.

It gave me headaches that went away after about half an hour. How long or much I shifted things didn't seem to matter, the headaches never lasted too long but they were uncomfortable.

They asked me to touch a chair, and then move it the way I'd moved the other stuff, just by thinking about it. It didn't work. They made me try it with the table, a large rock Superman brought in, and a heavy engine. I couldn't shift any of them.

Honestly, I was a little disappointed. For just a few minutes, I'd imagined myself flying like Superman, or being able to run fast like the Flash, or having super strength. But all I could do was move dirt from point A to point B.

I could already do that before alien goo fell on me.

This didn't discourage the lab coats any. They put me through another round of moving different types of sand and rubble, excitedly talking to each other using complex strings of techno babble and taking more notes.

My head started to throb. I told the lab coats about the headaches and they wrote that down too, but no one offered me an aspirin. They were too busy discussing me.

"Can I take a break now?"

No one objected, so I stepped out of the lab just for a change of scene. Flash was leaning against the corridor wall, arms folded as if he had nowhere better to be.

"How's it going?" he asked.

"It gives me a headache to do it, and I can't move anything big."

"But you can move small things with your mind. That's a pretty cool power."

"I guess. I have to touch the stuff first."

"It's strange, isn't it? One minute you're just regular, everyday you, doing you things, and then because you were standing in this spot instead of that spot, you get splashed with radioactive sh...stuff and it all changes."

"They don't know if this is permanent," I said, alarmed. "Nothing's going to change. It's only temporary."

Right?

(to be continued)


	2. Chapter 2

Chasing Normal (2/3)  
by dotfic  
Gen, PG  
All characters are the property of DC Comics and Warner Brothers, except for the janitor, who belongs to the author.

* * *

I lived in the Metro Tower for three weeks. Superman offered me larger quarters but I stayed in my usual room on level six where all the other crew and techs stayed while they were on-shift. I wanted to keep working but Mr. Terrific gave orders that I was to be kept off duty and under observation. Hitchens filled in—he'd taken the same training I'd had. We'd planned carefully for a backup, given the amount of hazardous spills the Tower seemed to have.

But it was my job, dammit. Hitchens was a good guy and smart enough, but I worried if I wasn't keeping an eye on things one of the janitors would forget proper procedure and fail to put up a "wet floor" sign or give proper warning about breathing conditions when the ventilation system was being cleaned.

For a couple of days I tried hanging around and watching Hitchens supervise until he lost it and yelled at me that I was giving him the creeps and would I just relax and take this as a bonus vacation already?

As I walked away I heard him mutter to Clemens, "Just got his superpowers, and already he's got delusions of grandeur."

Which was really unfair.

I stuck to myself after that. A lot of the capes were friendly. But it felt strange hanging around with them.

At the end of three weeks, Green Lantern came to the lab.

"We need to talk."

"Okay," I said. "Should we go to the cafeteria or..."

"No. Not there. Follow me."

I swallowed, and followed him. Green Lantern opened a small panel in the side of the elevator and punched in a security code.

We were silent on the ride up. I couldn't have spoken even if I wanted to. He wasn't frowning, but he looked stern. Maybe I'd done something wrong. Maybe they'd decided to fire me and give Hitchens my job.

The doors hissed quietly open and the first thing I saw was the big Justice League symbol. They were on the double doors that led into the Founding Members' Conference Room. Only myself, two of my crew, and a handful of techs were even allowed in there—someone had to change the bulbs in the light fixtures, dust it, and keep the computers running.

They were seated around the big table: Batman, Superman, Flash, Wonder Woman, Hawkgirl, and Green Lantern.

There was an empty chair, the symbol on its back a reminder of change.

I suddenly missed him. He used to scare me until I actually sat down and talked with him. He would have been a comfort. Word had gotten around why he'd left. Ironic, that I was in that room and he wasn't. Both of us chasing after normal.

No one asked me to sit, and I didn't ask to.

"Thank you for coming," Superman said. There was a file folder open in front of him. In fact, there was one open in front of all of them. The Flash was nearest to me and when I snuck a closer look at his folder, I saw my own name on the tab.

I started to feel nervous.

"It's been three weeks and your powers show no sign of fading. It's impossible to tell if they're permanent or not." He added, in a tone that sounded like he was trying very hard to be reassuring, "They could last another week, they could last a year, they could last the rest of your life."

"We just don't know enough about planet XP3414," said Green Lantern, turning over a page in the file. "Our scientists have been studying the substance that fell on you. I'm quoting from their report: _subject has low-grade telekinesis, which acts on fluids of varying degrees of viscosity, and on solid substances if they are in small enough pieces. Physical contact must be initially established with the substance for subject to perform telekinesis, and afterwards he experiences episodic tension headaches, which have determined to be harmless, if of some discomfort to the subject._"

Fifty-dollar words. Great.

"In English, you can move stuff with the power of your mind, but only small objects or liquids, and your head hurts later," said Flash.

"What happens to me now?" I said, and my voice came out too loud, echoing in the big room. "Do I get to go home? Can I go back to my job?"

Superman folded his hands on top of the file folder, looking uncomfortable. "Actually, since we don't know how long this will last, and you do have some new, unusual powers... we think it would be best if we kept you around."

"So I can be a lab rat indefinitely? Forget it!"

"Although you will have to get periodic tests, you won't have to be in the lab every single day or even every week," Wonder Woman said hastily. "You just can't go back to your old job yet."

"But my family...what about my salary..."

"It's being covered," Batman said tersely.

"Then what am I..."

"We're inviting you to join the Justice League, at the entry level. You will be provided with training," said Green Lantern.

There was a rushing sound in my ears. "I'm sorry. What did you say?"

"Wanna be a superhero?" Flash asked, and grinned.

"No," I said. "I want my job back. I want to go home."

"I'm sorry, but we can't..." Superman began.

Batman interrupted him. "Power untrained and unchecked is dangerous. The only way to ensure that you learn to manage it safely, during the time you have it, is to give you proper supervision and help you manage those powers."

"We're not that scary, are we?" Hawkgirl asked gently. Even though everyone called her Shayera now, I still thought of her as Hawkgirl. It seemed disrespectful to use her first name.

"No...I mean, of course not, it's just that..."

"We know this has been tough for you," Green Lantern said. "But I agree with Batman."

"Believe me, it's easier than being out there with it on your own," Flash added.

Wonder Woman gave me a sympathetic, apologetic smile. "It has its rewards. Please consider our offer."

"He doesn't have a choice," Batman turned to her. "If he doesn't agree, we'll have to hold him here one way or another. It's too dangerous to..."

"Are you suggesting we keep this man here by force?" Wonder Woman said sharply. "He's been a part of the crew since the first Watchtower was constructed. He's done nothing wrong."

"He could be a danger to himself and others. He has no choice."

"She's right," Superman said. He glanced at me. "Relax. We're not going to keep you here by force. But if you choose to leave, I have to tell you, I think you'd be making a mistake. Not because it would make things more difficult for us. But because it would make it more difficult for you. There's a lot you'll have to deal with."

"Someone could see you using your powers," Flash said.

"I'm not going to use my..."

Flash shook his head. "You will. You think you won't, but you will. You're going to need a costume. And a mask."

"A mask? But I'm just a janitor. No one knows who I am."

"Not yet." Superman turned in his chair so he could face me more directly. "I'm sure the local news would be interested in how you stopped the muggers in that alley a few weeks ago."

"Think about it," Batman said slowly.

The cowl-covered face gave nothing away. This was a man with a lot of secrets.

I pictured footage of myself on the local news, my face clear for all to see, while reporters described what I could do, and then the next day when the girls didn't come home from school and my wife and I got the letter: "We have your daughters."

"All right," I said, and shivered.

Batman rose fluidly. "You will be issued an ID, a communicator, and limited access codes. Less than what you're used to having as Head of Maintenance. That's how it has to be. You will be heavily supervised. You will go out on low hazard level missions only. You will not consider yourself an official superhero."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. What, you guys have a superhero internship program or something?"

"Something like that," said Green Lantern. He pressed his communicator. "You two can come in now." He turned back to me. "We've gotten in the habit, when trying out new members, of assigning them to more experienced entry-level members. Someone to show them the ropes and keep them out of trouble."

A door opened somewhere at the back and two costumed figured approached. As they moved out of the shadows into the light, I recognized them.

I cursed before I could remember where I was. But who could blame me? They were just kids, almost young enough to date my oldest daughter.

"Gear, Static, meet...uh..." Flash hesitated. "What are we going to call you?"

"The Janitor," I said.

"Whoa, man." Static put out his hands in denial. "We gotta work on that name."

* * *

They let me go home for two days' leave.

Before I left, Static and Gear took me down to level two where the administrative offices were located. Because I already worked there and Security had cleared me, there wasn't another background check, but I still had to fill out a few more forms. Then we headed to Security where I was issued an ID and a communicator.

I stared down at the ID tag. They'd made me wear an eye mask for the photo. I looked ridiculous.

I was staring at the tag that night as I sat on the bed, listening to the TV going downstairs. I was supposed to go down there and watch a movie with the girls. Family movie night.

I hadn't told them I was going away yet.

My wife poked her head in the door. "You coming down?"

Guiltily, I put the ID in the back pocket of my jeans.

"Sure, hon. But first, let's talk." I smiled and patted the bed next to me.

My wife looked at me, one hand on her hip, giving me The Suspicious Look. After a moment she sat down beside me, at the very edge of the bed.

"You know those long business trips I've been taking?"

She nodded. "Yes. I thought when the League switched you to the Metro Tower here on Earth that you'd be around more often."

"Uh...me too." I stared down at my hand against the floral pattern on the bedspread, at her hand too far from mine. Then I looked up into her brown eyes. "There's something I have to tell you about those business trips. They weren't to meet with salespeople. I made the NASA thing up."

The look in her eyes went detached, shutting me out, and she didn't move any closer to me. I kept on talking because I didn't know what else to do. "It's...you're not going to like this."

"Just tell me." It sounded like her teeth were clenched, but since she kept her mouth mostly shut in a tight, defensive line it was hard to tell.

I looked down at the bedspread again. "See, the thing is, hon, there was this accident at work. They had a mission to another planet and when they got back there was this alien goop all over one of the Javelins. My crew and I were cleaning it off and some got on me and now...uh...I...have...special...uh...pow

ers."

The bed twitched as she moved. I looked at her and watched as she blinked and turned her head like someone waking up from a dream.

"There was a...you have what?"

"Powers. Because this alien...substance...fell on me and..."

"Are you telling me you have superpowers because alien goop fell on you?"

_Oh, God, I'm in trouble._

She made a funny, whooping sound and then quickly covered her mouth with her hands. Her eyes were way too bright.

"It's not funny! They ran tests on me and stuck me with needles and I had to lie to you and the kids for weeks and it was boring..."

"I'm sorry, babe. I know." She put her arms around me from the side, resting her cheek on my shoulder. "The goop didn't hurt you, did it?" Pulling away, she looked at me seriously. "I mean, it's not radioactive goop? You aren't..."

"I'm in perfect health. It's just that I can do...things...I couldn't before."

She bounced up and down on the bed. "What kind of things? Can you fly?"

"No."

"Super-strength?"

"Not exactly."

"Or are you invulnerable to harm? Like that guy in _Unbreakable_?"

"Um...not that either."

"Omigod." She bounced again. "Can you run really fast like the Flash?"

Damn his eyes. It was one thing that my twelve-year-old had a crush on him, it was quite another that my wife seemed to as well. What was it with that guy and women?

"No."

"Then what?"

"I can move substances from one spot to another."

"You mean levitate objects?"

"Not objects. Substances. I have to touch them first, and then I can move it from one location to another just by concentrating. Low-grade telekinesis, if you want to get technical. If there's sand all over the floor, if I touch a few grains, I can shift it all into a neat pile by thinking about it. I can put spilled water back into a container, or gather all the dust in a room into one clump."

A slow smile crept across her face as she processed what I was telling her.

I could tell who would be doing all the cleaning in our house for the indefinite future.

Then she changed gears. From zero to sixty in oh point three seconds, that's my sweetie. "Okay." She rubbed her hands together. "We have to plan. What does this involve, exactly? How much are you going to be away?"

"A month. I'll be given leave, so it's not like you and the girls won't see me. But they said they have no other option but to bring me into the Justice League."

Her mouth dropped open.

"Only entry level, honey. They're going to train me. I'll have to take, I dunno, hero classes, something like that, and they're going to handle all the costuming issues so you don't have to get on the sewing machine."

"Do you have a persona? A hero name?"

"Well, I was kind of thinking of calling myself..." I hesitated, knowing she would laugh. "'The Janitor.'"

She didn't laugh. Instead she gave me a pitying look. "Oh, babe. We'll have to work on that. Now what about the costume? I could come up with some ideas. It should be practical, yet impressive. Maybe something in black...no, green...no, that's been done. How about dark blue? Blue with yellow trim...that would look so great with your coloring. And you'll need a mask." She began rummaging on the night table for a pad and pencil. "Maybe a cape..."

"NO CAPES!" Two voices shouted from just outside the door, followed by giggles.

"Get in here," I said.

The girls slowly pushed the bedroom door open. My oldest actually did look a little sorry, but her sister just ran to me and jumped up on the bed, giggling. "Daddy's a superhero!" She shouted.

"No...no, I'm not...it's not like that..."

"Dad." My almost teenager folded her arms. One eyebrow went up. "You do understand how incredibly cool this is, right? Does this mean I get to meet the Flash?"

I put my head in my hands, and groaned.

* * *

"Oh, no." Gear let out a groan.

"What?"

"Look at who we have for forensics."

"Him? Are you surprised he's teaching forensics?" Static said.

"I was hoping for The Question. Or maybe Captain Atom. Or Mr. Terrific...what's so funny?"

They both turned to look at me.

I stifled my smile. "You two sound exactly like me and my buddies back in high school. Of course we didn't have the outfits..." I gestured vaguely at my chest, which was now covered in some kind of stretchy blue fabric, thicker than spandex. I'd been told it was heat, cold, and stain resistant, but not bullet-proof so I shouldn't get cocky.

"You won't be laughing at ten fifteen," said Gear, glancing at the digital readout on his wrist.

"What happens at ten fifteen?"

"Forensics."

* * *

It wasn't that I had been bad at school. My grades were fine. It wasn't that I disliked going to school. I had a good group of pals. It was that I didn't like school enough to keep doing it. Never went to college. I didn't like memorizing pointless information that would be useless as soon as the test was over. Of course, I've never shared that view with my kids. My wife is a big believer in education. She didn't go to college either, but she was a straight-A student and often said wistfully she'd like to get her degree. She decided she would when our youngest is out of elementary school.

That was why I went into the army—the not liking school. I figured at least I could be learning practical stuff and then using it in real life situations right away. The Go Army ads always got that much right, anyway, even if they never said jack about what it would feel like the first time a shell exploded a dozen yards away from you.

The Justice League classes were like that, though. Real things you could use. Before forensics we had hand-to-hand fighting with Green Lantern.

He nodded at me as we walked in, no smile or greeting. Usually the guy is pretty friendly. I got the message: class time.

Green Lantern was former USMC and he made my old drill sergeant look like a sweet elderly babysitter. My army training helped prepare me a little better than the other junior Leaguers in the class, but not by much.

He called the class to order and I snapped to attention automatically, back straight, awaiting orders. Static and Gear stopped talking and stood, if not with military precision, without slouching.

The others seemed lost, and kept talking, only in quieter voices.

"Shut your cakeholes and listen up," Green Lantern barked. "Form a line."

They scurried like ants to obey. Except for Booster Gold, who moved more slowly and looked very bored. For a little while he tried to stand up straight and look serious, but as Green Lantern paced back and forth in front of us, reeling off the principles of fighting, Booster put his gloved hand to his mouth, and yawned.

"Booster Gold!" Green Lantern spun suddenly and put his face close to the other superhero's. "Do you feel like repeating this class a third time?"

"No, not really."

"Then. Pay. Attention. Even Blue Beetle made it through in two takes."

Somebody snickered. After that Green Lantern was in a bad mood.

I got thrown to the mat about seven times. I'm in decent shape—I lift weights—and I remembered some of my Army training. But it wasn't enough to prepare me. By the end of class I was stiff and my back hurt. Almost all of us were limping. Gear had to help Static up off the floor, and the boys supported each other as they limped out of the room at the end of class.

Now Green Lantern was all smiles, kidding around and even giving out a few pats on the back.

"Not bad," he said, clamping a hand down on my shoulder.

I tried not to wince.

So by the time we headed to forensics, we were in pain. I figured at least in forensics, we wouldn't get beat up. Besides, part of my training in special cleanup as head of maintenance involved a lot of chemistry. Plus I'd seen the TV shows.

"Whatever you do, just don't annoy him," Booster Gold joined me in as we headed along the corridor. "He's scary when he's annoyed."

"He's scary when he's not annoyed, too," said Gear. "He's already flunked me twice. Me! Flunk something involving science!"

"And yet, you live to tell the tale," Static said, rolling his eyes.

"He's flunked me four times. The guy has it in for me." Booster nodded.

"Booster, you never study!" Static protested.

"We've got tactics class with Shayera right before lunch. What is this, tough teacher Tuesday?" Gear squinted through his goggles at the class schedule. "Then there's Ground Level Surveillance at three...oh. That was going to be The Question, but his name's crossed off."

"Guess he had a last-minute mission." Booster shrugged.

"Shayera?" I said, as we entered the lecture room and sat down near the middle. "You mean Hawkgirl?"

"Yeah. Why couldn't it have been Wonder Woman? She's always sweet to me." Gear tucked the schedule away into a pocket somewhere.

"But...Shay...I mean Hawkgirl. She's teaching one of our classes? I mean, in person?"

"Yeah," Gear said slowly, in the tone I'd heard my teenage daughter use sometimes when she clearly thought I was being dense. "In person. Dude, what's the big...oh." He snickered.

"She is pretty," said Static.

I was about to open my mouth to say something sharp—these kids were half my age and I thought maybe I needed to remind them that seniority counts, even if they knew a lot already about being a hero and I knew zip—when Batman appeared.

He didn't walk in. The door to the left of the lectern never moved. One minute he wasn't there, the next he was.

Immediately, like someone had thrown a switch, all conversation winked out.

He pulled something out of his belt and walked up the steps of the center aisle. He stopped at our row, and dropped something on the table in front of Gear.

"Tell me what you see."

"It's rope."

"What kind?"

Gear picked it up. "Synthetic. Nylon maybe?"

"And?"

"And?" The kid's voice squeaked and he immediately repeated, in a deeper voice, "And...the ends are frayed."

"Worn or cut?"

"Cut."

"Why?"

"Because all the threads are even. If it had just broken from wear, it would be more ragged."

"What kind of knife?"

"Um..."

"Anything else?"

"There's a stain." He sniffed the rope. "Smells like fish."

The implacable figure standing in the aisle just looked, and waited.

"So it's probably from the waterfront!" Gear finished, sitting up with a note of triumph in his voice.

"Which. Waterfront."

The kid slumped. Well, he'd tried.

"Write me a fifteen page paper on the ecology and pollutants of all major ports on the East Coast by next week. And memorize the list of synthetic fibers in the handout."

Then he turned and headed back down towards the lectern.

Slumping down further in his chair, Gear shot Static a despairing look.

"Don't slouch," Batman said, without turning around.

* * *

An endless forty minutes later, we emerged. I'd managed to escape notice and he hadn't called on me once.

Next up was tactics. I didn't escape Hawkgirl's notice. She called on me. I answered wrong. She cursed at me in a language I didn't recognize and repeated what she'd just told us. Then she asked me again and when I answered correctly, she smiled.

I don't remember anything about the class after that.

Hey. Fair's fair. If my wife can have a crush on the Flash...besides, there's no crime in looking.

"What are you so cheery about?" Booster Gold asked me afterwards when we sat down in the cafeteria for lunch.

"Yeah." Static reached for the ketchup. "Considering this was your first time through the class, she chewed you out pretty good."

"I know," I said. "Isn't she amazing?"

My head was kind of full from the morning. Bits and fragments of new knowledge, the way my back still ached from Green Lantern's class, how glad I was that Hawkgirl no longer wore a helmet that concealed her face, Batman's slides of actual crime scenes, Booster Gold yawning, Gear and Static arguing like two guys who'd been in the same platoon for too long. So I chewed my sandwich without really tasting it. I'd eaten in that cafeteria a thousand times, but now it felt different. The material of my costume felt weird, too tight and yet stretchy and comfortable at the same time. Even though I was wearing gloves, my cup of soda was cold in my hand, because they'd given me special gloves with the finger pads open to the air. It was because I had to touch objects to do TK.

Maybe it was the touch of cold, but something snapped into focus. It could have been the glint of gold in the corner of my eye—Wonder Woman's lasso. Or the tails on Zatanna's jacket fluttering as she walked by. Or the way Vigilante's boots sounded on the linoleum. There was Green Arrow, eating what looked like a Caesar salad, gesturing with his fork as he made some point to Mr. Terrific, who listened attentively as he ate his tuna sandwich.

Suddenly I was hyper-aware of every person in the room. There were techs in their jumpsuits and heroes in their costumes and even though I'd eaten in that cafeteria a thousand times before, it definitely felt different. Surreal.

"'Scuse me," I mumbled, and pushed back my chair with a loud scrape.

"You okay?" Static asked.

"I'm fine. Be right back. Indigestion."

All the air had been sucked out of the room and I wondered that no one else seemed to be having trouble breathing.

Somehow I stumbled out of there. In the corridor outside I found a door marked "Deck Access," shoved the heavy metal bar, and as the door clicked open, cool air rushed in at me.

There were a few superheroes and a few techs seated out there, but not many. It was quiet. The street noises of Metropolis rose from below, muffled by distance. Mostly it was just the wind whistling around the building.

I found as unobtrusive a spot as I could, behind a potted evergreen bush. Leaning my elbows on the stout railing, I took several long deep breaths. A cold sweat prickled my forehead and as the wind passed over me I shivered.

The deck was paved with small, smooth round pebbles. I knelt and touched them, then using telekinesis, made a little pile by my boot, leaving a patch of exposed cement.

It made no sense. I couldn't possibly have TK and be taking classes in how to solve crimes and fight super villains. Hitchens was doing my job. It was some crazy alternate universe.

If I'd worked under the same roof with the heroes for years, why should it bother me now to see them everywhere, to be among them?

Some people would kill to be in my shoes, to be standing where I was standing.

It was selfish and ungrateful of me to wish I wasn't.

"Hey, man, you okay?"

There was a twitch of red, a blur, and then the Flash snapped to a halt beside me. Several needles fell from the evergreen bush.

"Yeah. I'm fine."

"Looking a little green around the gills," he said, "Or you would be if you were Aquaman. Maybe you should get to the infirmary. Alien goo, remember?"

"No...really, I'm okay. I have my check-up tomorrow anyway."

Flash leaned sideways against the railing and tucked one ankle over the other, as if the railing suddenly breaking away under his weight would be no concern at all.

I remembered something he'd said to me outside the lab. "Do you ever feel...intimidated...being one of them?"

He looked out over Metropolis. "Me? Intimidated?" He laughed. "Only every other day. On Mondays and Wednesdays I feel overwhelmed." He turned his glance to me, or at least the blank white eye slits of his cowl. "Whatever you're feeling? It's normal."

"But you saved the world from Brainiac."

He seemed to freeze at that and I was immediately sorry I'd said it. It was none of my business, and even superheroes have emotional scars. Especially superheroes maybe.

"Sometimes I think that was some other guy named Flash."

He straightened up and before he zipped away, added, "Stop thinking so hard. It'll give you bad dreams."

* * *

After that, I went back to the table, trying not to think about anything but what I might get asked in Ground-Level Surveillance.

When we reached the classroom, heroes were gathered in clumps, talking. There were a handful Gear and Static's age—Teen Titans. There was Robin—everyone knew who _he_ was, and a kid with a quiver of arrows on his back, and a goth girl in a cloak.

The idea of kid sidekicks always bothered me. The concept of my oldest girl wearing an eye mask and a black cape with a red tunic filled me with horror.

Yet there were a lot of teenage heroes. Static and Gear loved what they did. Maybe there was something about it I didn't understand.

Some of the heroes speculated who was going to take The Question's place in the class, names spoken with a range of emotions from dread to eagerness.

Finally Robin walked up to the front of the room, and the whispered conversations died out. "Okay, everyone, let's get started."

The kid was teaching the class?

_Of course. Remember who trained him_.

* * *

Feeling unsettled and jittery, I showed up too early for my medical test the next day.

The waiting room looked like any doctor's office: burbling fish tank, dull beige upholstery, soft blue walls, Muzak. There was an oil painting of a mountain landscape, several color photographs of flowers. No superhero portraits.

They stuck on the electrodes, made me run on a treadmill, poked me with needles, took my blood pressure, and did a hundred other little things using machines I couldn't identify. I had to demonstrate my powers again, shifting sand, small stones, and marbles. A few slipped out of the container and rolled away across the floor, leading to the inevitable joke about how I'd lost them.

Those superhero doctors had a sense of humor (just not a good one). They probably had to or go insane.

Finally, it was over. One doctor said my blood pressure was too fast, was I under any stress? It was hard to tell if she was being ironic or not. I choked back my laughter and no, I was fine, just going through a period of adjustment.

The following day, I got the word—I'd been cleared to go out on a mission. 

(to be continued)  



	3. Chapter 3

Chasing Normal (3/3)  
by dotfic  
Gen, PG  
All characters are the property of DC Comics and Warner Brothers, except for the janitor, who belongs to the author.

* * *

Mr. Terrific briefed us.

"Elongated Man and Zatanna will take down the giant robot. Gear, Static, and er...The Janitor...are on crowd control. You three will stay in contact with your teammates and me regularly. As in every ten minutes, check in. You will not, I repeat, _not_, try to engage the giant robot. Leave that to your senior teammates. I'll want a full report on the mission afterwards, so pay attention to what's going on around you. Zatanna and E-man will also be turning in a mission report and part of that includes evaluating each of you."

"Uh...excuse me...I hate to interrupt..." Elongated Man tapped Mr. Terrific on the shoulder. "Giant robot tearing up Metropolis?"

Mr. Terrific waved him back. "Yeah, I know. He's the new guy, okay? I have to brief him."

"Nice to meet you." Elongated Man shook my hand. He didn't wear a mask and he looked like someone I'd go bowling with on Thursday nights. "Relax. You've seen one giant robot tearing up a major metropolitan area, you've seen them all."

Zatanna made a small noise of disgust. "At least it's not a giant slug creature like last time." She twitched her shoulders. She was pretty. Not gorgeous-pretty like Hawkgirl or Wonder Woman. More girl-next-door pretty, which was odd because she also didn't look like any girl I'd ever lived next door to, but that was mostly due to her costume.

We clustered into a transport chamber.

"You use these? But we're on Earth," I said. "In Metropolis."

"It's the fastest way to get there," said Zatanna.

"Sure," said Elongated Man. "What are you going to do? Take the bus?"

"Don't be a wise-ass." Zatanna smacked him lightly on the arm.

Mr. Terrific hit a switch, and we ended up on a broad avenue downtown, with screaming, running people all around us.

The ground shook. Three blocks away loomed an orange structure that it took me a second to register was not a building, because it _moved_.

I looked up. Kept looking up. Looked up more until my neck started to hurt. Crap, it was a big robot. A big orange robot. I wondered who had sent it, but that didn't seem to be a concern for my teammates at the moment, what with the crowd screaming and yelling and stampeding.

Zatanna and Elongated Man started running towards the robot. A man tripped and fell almost at my feet so I knelt and helped him up. He shot me a grateful look that dissolved into puzzlement before he ran on.

Static, Gear. Where were they? I turned, giving myself a mental shake. Had to keep an eye on the kids, even though they knew way more than I did about heroing, and I knew they'd been in the field before, protecting their own city. When you're a Dad, instinct is louder than reason.

Static had electrified an overturned car, moving it out of the way of the fleeing crowd. Gear was zipping around using his jetpack, steering people away from the worst of the debris. He pressed something at his wrist, and his amplified voice told the crowd to head for 12th Street, and not to panic.

Don't panic. The ground shook again.

Zatanna stopped, her black-and-white clad form looking much too small in front of the orange monstrosity. She pointed her wand and shouted something unintelligible. Bright flares of light went off around the thing's big metal head. It faltered, its sensors blinded. Elongated Man grabbed Zatanna around her waist and stretched himself up until they were both perched on the giant's shoulder. Zatanna did something with her wand again. Sparks flew out of the robot's neck, and then a ragged metal shape shot out of its chest like a bullet in reverse.

It must have been some kind of control center, because the robot began to sway and the vivid light died out of its visor-shaped eyes. Zatanna leapt, Elongated Man caught her, stretching himself to the ground and depositing her safely on the sidewalk.

With a lumbering, deafening creak, the robot toppled and crashed, taking several lamp posts, a truck, a newsstand, and part of a building's stone facade with it.

The thud when it landed almost knocked me off my feet. A cloud of debris rose into the air. No one was beneath it. The crowd had all gotten out in time. The street was deserted now except for us.

"Nice work, guys," Zatanna materialized out of the clouds of dust, her tuxedo jacket smudged with white. She sounded a bit breathless, like my wife after a workout. Endorphins. I stared at her. It was like she thought that had been _fun_.

Gear smiled at her worshipfully and his voice scratched a little when he said "Thanks."

Elongated Man turned to me. "Congratulations."

I blinked, and rubbed dust from my chin. "For what?"

"On not getting injured your first mission out."

"Oh."

He touched his communicator. "We need a cleanup team to sector 127-B."

"How did The Janitor do?" I heard Mr. Terrific ask.

"He's in one piece."

"Good," said the voice over the comm. "Put him on cleanup. I'm sending down a team."

Well, at least I knew how to do that. There was a lot of debris, not all of it too heavy for me to shift. I could take care of all the dust.

Maybe they'd even let me use a broom instead of my mind.

"Elongated Man out." He turned back to us. "Gear, Static, you stay with The Janitor."

"Where are you going?" Zatanna demanded as he walked away.

"Um...nowhere..."

"You're going for ice cream, aren't you?"

"Nooooo..."

"I'll tell Sue. That's right, she's onto you. She told us about your cholesterol problem."

"Aw, c'mon Zatanna..."

"Get frozen yogurt."

"Yogurt!" He made a disgusted noise.

Their voices faded as they walked away down the street, as if it was an ordinary day and said street wasn't broken and covered in rubble. There wasn't a sunset, they just vanished into the haze of dust.

It was an open secret that Elongated Man was married. Now I remembered meeting his wife once—she was among the very few civilian visitors allowed into the Metro Tower. Nice woman.

How did he manage the strains this life put on a marriage? Not seeing his wife for weeks at a time. Knowing she was at home worrying about him, knowing each mission might be the last. Or him worrying about her. Maybe my wife and his could form some kind of a "Superhero Spouses" support group. Or wait, maybe not. That could kind of blow the whole secret identity thing.

We were an hour into the cleanup process when Mr. Terrific's voice sounded in my ear.

"Janitor, Static, Gear. Change of plans. Get over to 7th and Siegel. Batman's signal just went out mid-transmission and we don't know why. Clayface was spotted in Metropolis about half an hour ago and Batman went to investigate. Reconnaissance only. Do not engage Clayface. I repeat, do not..."

"Yeah, we know," said Static. "'Do not engage Clayface.'"

"How are we going to get there?" I asked. My head throbbed slightly. I'd shifted a lot of debris while techs in hardhats dismantled the robot, piece by piece, lifting it away by helicopter to some unknown location.

"Like this." Static snapped open his collapsible air-surfing disk, sent a charge into it, and hopped on board.

Gear grabbed me under the armpits. "Hope you aren't afraid of heights," he said, as we rose off the ground.

I closed my eyes.

* * *

Most of the crowd had already fled by the time we arrived, although there was a small cluster of gawkers. Reporters too, I assumed, because flashbulbs popped. All I could see for several seconds were fuzzy red spots. I blinked and the spots cleared enough that I could make out a massive, lumpy dark shape in the middle of the cleared intersections. It was like a parody of a person, with legs, arms, shoulders, head, all grotesquely proportioned.

Cars honked from all directions. Two cops lay on the street, face down and still. Gear ran to one of them and checked for a pulse.

"He's alive!"

Static went to the other one and knelt. "He's okay too, just out cold." He stood up and looked around. "Where's Batman?"

"I can't see him." Gear slowly stood up and walked over to stand with Static, as if he felt safer that way.

Clayface seemed to be grappling with something in his arms. He twisted, his back to me. I moved closer.

There. Just sticking out as if a torn bit of cloth had stuck to his leg, was a patch of black. Except that wasn't a torn bit of black cloth. That was part of a cape.

Batman was fighting. You could see it as the clay bulged and Clayface had to keep reflowing his shape to contain him. I caught a glimpse of a boot before it vanished beneath the suffocating ripple of dark clay.

The struggles seemed to grow less frequent, slower, more sluggish. The bit of cape got sucked under, leaving no trace.

I tried to imagine a world without Batman and it was like a world without Superman.

Vaguely, as if they were at the end of a long tunnel, I heard Static and Gear shout at me as I started to walk towards Clayface. Probably they were reminding me not to engage.

Clay was a lot like mud, which was a lot like dirt. Right?

I got right up behind him and put my hands on the massive back. Through my open-fingered gloves, I felt the clay, soft and malleable like normal clay, except it also rippled, almost like touching the moving scales of a snake, only warmer.

The monster's head turned. The broad, featureless face—the wide mouth, the blank eyes, saw me. It opened its mouth and roared, hard enough to ruffle my hair.

Funny, the things you think about. Like, I should have had that second piece of lemon meringue pie last night, I should have called my wife before the mission, I should have turned off the closet light in my quarters.

Gear and Static were still screaming at me.

I blocked them out, concentrating.

The look of menace on the huge head melted with comic swiftness from fury to confusion to realization to alarm. He oozed sideways and began to spread while a soft throb started in my left temple. I bit my lip, and Clayface started to break apart into separate clumps.

Like the tide retreating, the clay flowed away to reveal what it had covered. Batman slumped forward to the street, covered in clay, free. His shoulders heaved as he retched.

My whole head started to throb, with a sharp pain between my eyes. There were little wriggling blobs of clay all over the street now and it took all my effort to keep them separate.

Static and Gear ran up past me, but then Static pulled Gear to a stop before he could go to Batman. They stood and watched as the retching slowed and finally the broad shoulders stopped heaving.

The dark-cowled man got to his feet. He only staggered the first step before his body snapped into control. Except for the patches of clay stuck to his cape and cowl, he moved like he hadn't just nearly been suffocated.

"You weren't supposed to engage," he said as he stalked past us.

* * *

Mr. Terrific gave me a seven minute lecture on following orders.

Then he shook my hand.

I was covered in dust from the robot and clay from Clayface. The stuff was in my hair. Gross. It was a relief when I finally got alone in my quarters and into a hot shower.

The water beat down on my shoulders and into my ears with a soothing rush. My fingers were starting to prune from the shower, but I wasn't ready to get out yet. My head still hurt and I still felt dirty. I reached for more shampoo, as if massaging the stuff into my scalp would help line up my thoughts.

Batman saved my life once. Guess this was karmic balance. If so, why did everything feel so lopsided?

I shut off the water. With a towel pressed to my face, I had the sudden urge to giggle. According to the kinds of stories I'd read on the Justice League fan websites, since I'd just saved Batman, I now had to die. Or no, wait, I had to die _while_ saving Batman, which I'd failed to do, which meant I still had a chance to fling myself between Hawkgirl and a laser blast so I could die decorously in her arms...

All things being equal, I'd rather live, thanks.

The bathroom mirror was fogged over. I didn't bother to wipe a spot clear to look myself in the eye. It would just be the same face, the same eyes, the same hair. Looking for an outward sign of how different I felt was pointless.

_Be All That You Can Be_, that's what it said on the poster at the recruitment station where I'd filled out my Army application. That had been a choice and at the time I'd believed fully in the slogan. I've learned a lot since I was eighteen.

At Justice League headquarters there should have been a poster in the administrative office: _Try To Be All That You Never Thought You Could Be and Hope No One Notices You're Faking It_.

Towel wrapped around my waist, I sat on my bed, and rubbed my hair vigorously with my fingers to dry it. Tiny water droplets flew everywhere.

I saved _Batman_. From freakin' _Clayface_.

Nope, definitely not the same thing as remembering to put up the CAUTION: WET FLOOR sign.

* * *

Gear and Static were no help. The next day they kept staring at me, and didn't keep up their chatter like usual. I wanted to shake them both until their teeth rattled.

At least no one else was acting weird...much. The superhero gossip chain had its limits. For that, I was relieved, not just for my own sake, but for _his_. Imagine being _Batman_ and having your life saved by _The Janitor_. The guy had a rep to maintain, after all.

Just because I wanted to know, I went online and prowled the news websites, search engines, blogs, and Justice League sites. There were rumors in the blogosphere that a new, untrained superhero had saved Batman's life.

Whatever became of the pictures the photographer took, I never found out. He was probably from _The Daily Planet_, which covered the giant robot as a page one headline, but had no mentioned of Clayface.

We went to Green Lantern's class and as usual, I got tossed to the mat about half a dozen times.

"Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic, people!"

At least he didn't make the entire class drop and do forty like last time.

Heroes began to pick themselves and limp towards the door while Green Lantern kept berating us cheerfully. "Saddest bunch of superheroes I ever saw. My Great-Aunt Sally could gain world domination going up against the likes of you."

A shadow appeared at the door and Batman appeared, enfolded in his cape. He and Green Lantern nodded silent greetings to each other.

As I limped towards the door, Batman held out a gauntleted hand.

"Wait."

I stopped, turned, and looked behind me. No one there.

"Me?" I turned back.

"Yes."

Static and Gear shot me a curious look, but missed my telegraphed plea to linger. Green Lantern was the last to leave. Batman and I were alone. Oh God. Was he going to try to thank me? Could this situation be more awkward? Aliens attacking would have been perfect. Klaxons going off. Or perhaps the floor could just open up and swallow me. If he thanked me, what could I say back? _You're welcome? Just doing my job?_

He must know, of course. He was _Batman_. He must know that I was a fake who was scared to death and had no idea what I was doing when I shifted Clayface.

Maybe I moved quick enough, I could get past him and...

Yeah, right.

"You're too hesitant."

"Huh?"

"You're afraid to hurt your opponent, so at the last second, you pull back just a hair. It's throwing off your balance and reducing the power of your strike."

"I'm...what?"

"Stop pulling your punches. These are your friends, but one day it will be an enemy. You need to be able to fight."

"Oh." I hesitated. "CanIaskyouaquestion?" I said it real fast before I could lose my nerve or he could leave.

"What." There was a warning there. This was a guy who hated to be asked questions.

"Is it weird when you're back in your...other life? Whoever you are when you aren't doing this? I feel like when I go on leave this weekend, I won't be comfortable in my own skin anymore, even if I'm not still wearing this." I tugged on the stretchy sleeve of my costume and it snapped back into place.

"Are you sorry you were given your powers?"

"No...yes...it's hard to say. They don't fit me. I miss my old job. It's not like I wasn't helping people there. I was good at it. I'm not any good at this. Maybe I was helping more than I am now. I can't stand the idea of this HQ being less than one hundred percent safe and clean. I did what I did so all of you—" I waved my hand vaguely "—can do what you do."

He tilted his head to one side.

"What?" I asked.

"You just reminded me of someone I know." His lips twitched. Was that a _smile_? It was gone so fast.

"Uh...so, my question is how do all of you cope with going back and forth between lives?"

"Learn to be a good actor."

I sneezed and when I opened my eyes, he was gone. I didn't even see his shadow retreating.

He hadn't given me a chance to thank him for the fighting advice. It took me a few moments to realize he hadn't wanted me to, and that he had just thanked me in a way designed to cause me the least embarrassment.

Maybe he was human under that cape and body armor after all.

* * *

My powers started to fade gradually. It was little enough that I was still sent on a few more missions, always crowd control. I perfected the art of shouting reassurances to a panicked crowd, of herding people away from danger, finding the safest routes.

The doctors took notes on their clipboards and murmured anxiously to each other. It got to where I could shift sand but not marbles.

Mr. Terrific put me on monitor duty. No more missions.

Still, there was this one time I saved the world.

It was the middle of the night—shortly after oh-two-hundred hours to be precise—and I was on watch. It was a busy time. Most of the heroes were out on missions. Crisis on multiple continents, earthquakes, Gorilla Grodd, a suicide bombing, a wildfire, and a hostage situation. That was just the first hour of my watch.

A signal beeped. Off-world threat. I pressed a key and brought up a satellite image. It was a meteor, on a trajectory that would likely strike somewhere on the eastern seaboard. It was a big meteor. Not only would it likely take out several cities, it would cause tidal waves and devastation halfway across the world.

So I did what I had to do.

I got on the comm and called Mr. Terrific.

He called Superman, Supergirl, Green Lantern, Captain Atom, NASA, NORAD, and the U.S. military.

They got the meteor broken up into smaller chunks, and then the supers and Green Lantern towed the pieces into deep space.

A few weeks later, I turned in my I.D. card and my uniform, because my powers were almost gone. No one asked me to leave, but I hated being dead weight.

Hitchens grumbled a little when I returned to take his place but not too much. I had the feeling the job had turned out to be more difficult that he'd thought.

"Back to normal, huh?" Flash intercepted me as I left the admin exit interview.

"Relatively speaking," I said.

"Are you sorry?" He pulled out a chocolate bar, broke off a square, and held it out to me.

"About not being a cape anymore? Not really." I waved the chocolate away.

He shrugged, popped the square into his mouth. "How's your family?"

"Great," I said. "I'm just heading home now."

"You're lucky," he said.

* * *

A few nights later I was home with my feet up on the coffee table, reading the paper while my wife and the girls watched a sitcom on TV. The doorbell rang.

"I'll get it."

It was probably Hitchens or someone else from my crew, wanting to go over a few things before I got back to work the next week. Why they didn't just call instead of showing up on my doorstep seemed odd, though, but then so much had been odd lately.

I opened the door, letting a shot of cool air into the warm house. There was a stranger on our front porch. He was very tall with an angular face, dressed in a trenchcoat and fedora, like someone out of an old movie.

"Can I help you?" I said, keeping the door open only halfway.

The angular features flickered green and melted into another shape for a second before returning to human.

"J'onn J'onzz?"

"How are you this evening? How is your family?"

"Good. They're...good. What are you...would you like to come in?"

"Thank you," he intoned.

He followed me into the living room, his stiff dignity out of place in the cluttered, people and noise-filled room. The smell of dinner—roast chicken—lingered in the air.

"Honey, I'd like you to meet...uh...Mr. Jones. He's a...um..."

"A colleague," said Mr. Jones, with a calm smile.

My wife turned off to the TV and dislodged herself from the couch to shake his hand. "I'm sorry the place isn't more presentable, we've just..."

"Please, it is all right." He held up a slender hand.

"Girls, this is Mr. Jones."

"Hi," said my teenager brightly. I knew the look on her face. She looked just like my wife when she did that. She knew something was up and was trying to figure out if Mr. Jones was a colleague from the janitorial side or the superheroing.

"Let's go into the kitchen where we can talk privately," I said.

"It was nice meeting all of you."

Something sad flickered over his features as he looked at my daughters, and my youngest smiled at him shyly.

The kitchen was a zone of peace that evening, in the wake of dinner preparations. The sound of the TV resumed, muffled from down the hall, and the refrigerator hummed softly.

"Would you like anything to eat? We have plenty of leftovers..."

"Do you have any...Oreos?"

The way he was dressed, I'd expected him to ask for something harder, whatever Sam Spade might drink.

I put a lot of Oreos onto a plate and poured two glasses of milk. We sat across from each other. He picked up a cookie, separated it, licked out the cream filling, then dunked one of the cookie halves into the milk.

Now where did a Martian learn to do _that_?

"You left the League, right?" I reached for a cookie and dunked it whole into my milk.

"Yes."

"Um...what are you doing here in my kitchen, eating Oreos?"

He glanced at me before taking another cookie. "We have a lot in common, you and I."

My cookie stayed too long in the milk and grew soggy. "We do?"

"Both of us are trying to figure out how to live as something different."

I abandoned the cookie and let it sink to the bottom of the glass. "You're a superhero trying to live among ordinary mortals. I'm an ordinary mortal who tried to live among superheroes?"

"Yes." He paused. "I am finding it difficult. As I imagine you did. You resigned and are now going back to your old job, correct?"

"I'm just not cut out for all of that. Being a hero. The costume, the mask, not getting to see my family, the worry, the sheer terror...not just that I might get hurt but the responsibility. If I screw up, other people die."

"That could be said of your regular job."

"But I know how to do my regular job."

"You could learn to be a hero."

"It doesn't matter." I pressed my finger to the plate, picking up a few crumbs. "My powers are gone."

"If they hadn't gone, would you have resigned from the League anyway?"

"Probably." I licked the crumbs from my finger. "Like I said, I don't think I was cut out to be a hero."

"Tell me." He sat back and spread his arms. "What sort of a human do you think I make?"

"Hm. A little stiff. But otherwise...you seem like a good kind of human."

"Maybe you were a good kind of hero." He wiped his mouth fastidiously with a napkin. "Perhaps you'd like to talk about what happened to you."

"If you want to listen." I reached for another cookie. "I've got some questions."

We sat there with our cookies and milk, talking. Sometimes the girls would come in and interrupt us, wanting a snack, or more likely, just curious about my visitor. After a while, my wife got the second package of Oreos from the cabinet.

That's how we spent the evening, me and the Martian, in my kitchen, just two normal guys.

END


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